


Back to the Force

by bardsley



Category: Gargoyles (TV)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 13:23:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13054842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bardsley/pseuds/bardsley
Summary: The morning after she returns to New York with Goliath and Angela, Elisa senses that something is not as it should be.





	Back to the Force

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/gifts).



Elisa heard the soft purr of Cagney’s breathing as the cat bumped his cool nose against her face. She gently pushed the cat away. Elisa stretched her sore muscles. Sleeping on the floor last night had not done her any favors. She jumped to her feet immediately. This wasn’t right. It couldn’t have been a natural sleep. The last thing that she remembered before waking up was pacing her apartment thinking how good it was to be back and how nothing had changed, but after her journey with Goliath and Angela, everything had changed. She hadn’t thought that she would be able to get to sleep that night. 

She was fooling herself, she thought. She was exhausted. That’s why she fell asleep on the floor. 

Elisa shook her head. She went to the kitchen sink and splashed water on her face. She fought against the compulsion to dismiss whatever happened last night as… as… nothing but a dream. 

Elisa shivered. Her mind drifted back to Avalon. She thought of Oberon and his children. She had to see Goliath right away. 

Elisa dried her face and headed for the door, but stopped short at Cagney’s mewling. She left out fresh food and water for him. 

“I won’t be gone long, this time, I promise,” Elisa said. She wondered if it was a promise that she would be able to keep. 

Outside, the sun was just finishing its ascent. It was one of the hazy, bright orange sunrises that Elisa had not seen anywhere else in the world. She remembered being told once it was all the pollution in the air that made the sunrises so beautiful. She didn’t know if it was true or not, but it felt true. New York was like that, for everything that was wrong about the place it gave you something beautiful. It looked like nowhere else on Earth. It looked like home. 

Elisa walked faster. Home wasn’t just a place. It was people too. She wasn’t the only one waking up. People were waking up on the street and in cars. After a moment of surprise, they would go on with what they were doing with more than the usual casual acceptance of the unusual. It was magic. It had to be. She just wondered who did it this time. 

As Elisa got closer to the police station, she could see the familiar shapes of Goliath and his clan outlined against the dawn. They were there. Presumably, they were safe. Elisa felt something clenched tight in her chest relax at seeing them. Still, she wanted to see them in person. She slipped inside, greeting Matt as she went. Elisa was unprepared for the way that he dropped the papers he was holding in shock and moved to hug her. 

Right. Weeks. They had been gone for weeks. 

Elisa wondered if she still had a job here. She chuckled. “Hi, buddy. I missed you too.”

It was a few hours and two very different explanations to Matt and the captain before Elisa made it upstairs to the clock tower. Elisa told as much of the truth as she could, which wasn’t much. The captain could tell, and Elisa would be riding a desk for the foreseeable future. If she had a future here. Even with phoning in the excuse that she was taking vacation time, disappearing for weeks was not a good career move. 

Talking with Matt about waking up here at the station this morning just convinced Elisa even more that something was going on. Matt thought that everything was a conspiracy. But he seemed to dismiss the whole night shift sleeping over at the station as being a result of stress and overwork. She slipped outside. The gargoyles were all there. Their stone surfaces didn’t even seem to be chipped. Elisa still could not get rid of her feeling of unease. She stroked Goliath’s stone cheek. 

“Something just doesn’t feel right,” Elisa said to herself. 

“You have good instincts, detective,” Titania purred. 

Elisa jumped back at the sound of the voice, as if she had been caught doing something that she shouldn’t. “What are you doing here?” Elisa demanded. 

“I just wanted to offer my thanks to the clan,” Titania answered. “They failed to heed my warning last night. I might not have succeeded without their help.”

“You succeeded because they didn’t listen to your warning?” Elisa repeated. 

“Yes, that’s right. You, apparently, can listen, detective.” An amused smile played on Titania’s lips. 

“I am sure that no thanks are necessary,” Elisa said. She put her body between the fairy queen and the sleeping Goliath. “They would say the same if they were awake.” 

“Of course they would, but that only makes them more deserving of my gratitude, does it not?” Titania waved her hand dismissively at whatever Elisa might have said. “But, of course, what does one give a family that has everything they could want?” 

Titania looked around fondly at the stone gargoyles. Elisa had to admit that the fairy queen’s affection for them looked real. 

“So, as my thanks to them, I am going to offer my assistance to you, detective,” Titania said. 

Elisa could not keep the surprise from her expression. “I don’t need any help from you.”

One of Titania’s delicate eyebrows lowered in irritation. “Don’t be so eager to refuse my generosity. Your work is important to you, is it not? You want to return to it with a minimum of conflict. I can make that happen.”

Elisa thought about how everyone around her easily dismissed falling asleep in such strange situations the night before and not thinking anything strange was going on. 

“You’re responsible for whatever happened last night,” Elisa said. “You’re the reason no one is questioning it.”

“You are half right,” Titania said. “The credit for the last part goes to my husband. However, I am more than powerful enough to make your captain and the people she answers to not ask too many questions about your disappearance. That would be helpful, would it not?”

Elisa could not help thinking about it. “It would. What’s the price?”

“No price. I am not the trickster. Simply accept the help with my thanks.” Titania raised her hand. She blew a fine green powder that sparkled and glittered in the light. “Tell the others that I will not soon forget their help. And their disobedience.”

Titania was gone. Elisa was standing in the room alone. She huffed, wondering what she had gotten herself into. “Right. I’ll tell them.”

**Author's Note:**

> While rewatching "Gargoyles" episodes for this challenge, this struck me as a "something that must have happened" because the show goes from them returning (and Elisa not being involved in protecting baby Alexander) to her undercover.


End file.
